It Has to Be a Prank
by Silvara
Summary: Strange how easily Alan accepted to replace him at the meeting this time. It would even have been weird if Alan didn't give him an errand to run on the new Grid in turn. Well, if it allowed him to skip three hours of charts and briefings, Sam isn't going to complain. What could turn wrong, really? —A short simple one-shot featuring a jealous Tron with AI-like powers.


_A/N: Just a small humor/mystery idea that doesn't exactly seem to go anywhere, to my regret._

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With a smile tugging at his cheek and a tune in his head, Sam straddled his saddle, brought the engine of his vehicle alive and cracked his neck before kicking the beast onward.

Alan had accepted to replace him at the briefing as long as he would ran an errand for him on the Grid.

Having just avoided three long hours dozing off on a table, Sam feels lucky. ...And maybe just a little bit nervous.

Not because of the first part of the errand. Run some analyze on the Gris security was more boring than anything else.

It was the second part that bothered him a little. Entering Rinzler's building (or was it a repertory?) to get him to answers a few questions.

Alan had said the data was indispensable for the next patch of his program; the kind of data a program couldn't provide through an I/O tower.

That was the deal.

Sam had noticed the eagerness Alan literally glowed with as the end of the week approached, and with it, free time to go to the old arcade. He had been taking Tron's restoration as a very serious and personal affair. _Ridiculously much so, for all Sam was concerned._

...Which made Sam question that he would agree to sit on a business meeting when he could have been on the Grid, instead, not just gawking and probing at everything on the Grid as if it was Neverland itself, but actually working with Tron.

Which brought Sam back to his task.

Speaking of it, Sam wasn't completely sure that probing an unstable program with philosophic questions was a healthy activity for a user to conduct on the Grid.

Much less sure, even, if the identity of aforementioned program had freshly been torn to pieces by the meddling of a megalomaniac AI.

But well. It was still a better deal than the meeting.

Plus, Alan had already closed any possible backdoor in the code of (Rinz—Tron...well let's make it Tronzler). Alan wouldn't have sent him in there if he hadn't ensured that he would be safe around of his program, right?

Pondering that as he rode through the old city, the young man began to find the Grid too quiet, even with the hum of the main buildings and the chatters of a very few passerby did little to quell this feeling.

.

* * *

Sam didn't understand the greater dead that crawled up his skin when he entered the office of the security program.

Then, from a corner of a shadowed hall, the program's head immediately shot up toward him. Time seemed to freeze for a few nanos.

"[Greeting, SamFlynn]."

A little more confident not to see his blood spilled anywhere soon, he goes in, his steps resounding against the dark polished floor of the large room. Without so much as getting up the program show him to a seat on his bed - the only furniture currently rezzed besides the large desk.

As Rinzler had already made it clear in the past weeks that he would not speak of his glitches if that was not ultimately necessary, Sam first explains the purpose of his visit and away a sign of acknowledgement from the other. His constant withdrawal and aloofness could have made the program appear self-sufficient was it not for his evident weariness. Rinzler was always twitching.

In the first times, any sudden move toward his disk usually resulted in crisis, and he still refused to interface with and other user than His.

For the next micro-c, through, the monitor quietly answered his questions without any ado while and Sam takes notes. Some answers came less reluctantly than others, but each is finally addressed, and Sam, ready to leave way sooner than he believed. It is then that, without any sane reason, Sam decided to voice the question that has been nagging at him for a while:

"[Are you able to trust Users after what you, er well, experienced]?"

An uncomfortable silence settled for a while, and though Sam was pretty sure he did a good job wrapping it up with enough tact to keep his head on his shoulders, he nervously checked the firewall on the user dedicated drive where he had been rezzed, along with his connection shortcuts.

"[Users write bugs. User solve the bug they write]," came the program's answer. Almost serene.

Sam felt his chances to exit the building in one piece growing up. His shoulders relaxed a little.

"[Many cycles ago]," the program added up, "[I have had a data exchange with AlanOne's compiler]." The tone drifts between fact and pleasantry but when Sam turns, the program's face is stern.

"[He wrote me a debugging function. He trusted me to recognize and prevent many of his errors. I do not think Flynn gave one to Clu. The answer to that question lies in my code. AlanOne have read my code]."

The silence was heavy as the program's gaze sharpened, and Sam swears he is seeing a maniacal glow in them by now.

"[Users are users, SamFlynn. I am purposed to direct most users without their consent, and to distrust a good share of them alongside. My programming doesn't needs me to trust but one of them; my Administrator. AlanOne. Others are entities made to be protected, quarantined or stopped]."

As there was a final point to that statement, Sam nodded and turns to the automatic door, but just then, Tron also got up.

"[SamFlynn]?'

The tone was low and wary now and Sam's breath hitched for a bili-c.

"[Yes]?"

"[If you don't mind, there is a question that I would ask in my turn]."

Sam's eyebrows jumped in his hair, but the young man did a good job catching them back to keep a semblance of control on his nerves.

Before he could answer, the program marched toward him, without breaking visual contact.

"[Does my User... _functions well_ ]?" This words were simple, but the question came with a dripping suspicion.

It took almost a bill-c for Sam to understand that he still had control of his own voice and movements.

The user shrugged, with what he hoped still looked like despondency.

"[Yeah, he's just busy somewhere else right now]."

Time passed again in an even ticker silence as Sam felt his eyes being drilled through by the monitor' searing stare.

Eventually, when Sam was resigned to babble an excuse just to get out of the room which suddenly became chilling, the monitor eventually nodded. Then he sat on a low black desk that made a good third of the room and seemed to hesitate for a nano.

"[AlanOne didn't mention anything about delegating his cyclical visit]. [Yet my scans return that you are not trying to lie]..."

And with that the ageless face of old program clouded over with a frown, but the eyes were still riveted into his skull, following every of his moves.

[You can leave. The building is going to let you exit it]."

Oh well. If he was dismissed, Sam saw no reason to tally—wait _what?_

.

* * *

Driving back toward the portal, the words were still ringing in Sam's ears.

As he passes it, the data-feed of warnings continue to scroll in his mind, from his disk as it has since Tron has begun to question him himself.

Hey, _really?_

With an heavy sight, Sam walks upstairs until his can feel the steady old couch beneath him.

Maybe the three hours Encom meeting wouldn't be too bad next time.

Because, yeah, the job wasn't exactly all fun, but no one has locked him up in the tower as far.

One thing he will remember is never to trust Alan if he agreed to replace him so easily at a meeting. Okay—maybe he could have taken the job a little more seriously, but...c'mon !

Second, if Tron's hasn't turned crazy, then the old twig is more sleazy and cunning that he gave him credit for, but then wouldn't had Alan simply told him that he valued his own time off? Well he may told him that a couple of times, but the guy could just have told him that he _really_ wanted it that bad.

Because he would have understood; no one sane should have to deal with Alan's software, anyway.

Sam shook his head with a snort and grabbed a beer. giving it a long look before he re-hydrated his gall—hell, he's definitely going to bring a pack on the Gird, next time!

Heh, no one sane should have to deal with Alan's software, _still_ true alright, but _well,_ he's alive, wasn't he? And there's science to do: who else was going to test if programs could get drunk on beer on the Grid?

He had a noble mission now; purpose and all.

Well if _'AlanOne'_ wanted to play that way, he still had to repay his kindness.

Right? Because Sam was pretty sure that security monitors couldn't be have the power of an AI, so that was all just a prank.

Certainly...


End file.
